Goetz
graduates from New YorkUniversity
with a degree in electrical
and nuclear engineering.

1975

Goetz
launches his own
business out of his Greenwich
Village
apartment calibrating electronic equipment.

1981

Goetz is
violently mugged
by 3 African-American men in a New
York City subway. Unsatisfied
with the
punishment for
the men, Goetz begins to question the effectiveness of
NYC Police and
starts to carry a
concealed gun.

December
22, 1984

On
board NYC's No. 2
Expressway, Goetz fears trouble after being approached
by four
African-American men. He fires five shots,
injuring all four
African Americans and leaving one of them (Darrell
Cabey) permanently paralyzed. Goetz rents a car and
fleas to New England.

December
29, 1984

Goetz, after
telephoning his
neighbor, learns that he is has been identified as a
suspect in the
subway shootings.

December
31, 1984

Goetz turns
himself in to Concord,
New Hampshire
police.Barry Allen, one of
the four men shot, goes
home after
nine days of hospitalization.

January
2, 1985

Goetz is
arraigned in a
New Hampshire Court.Troy
Canty, another
one of the young men shot, prepares
to leave the hospital.

January
3, 1985

Goetz is
brought back to Manhattan
and
arraigned on four charges of attempted murder; bail is
set at $50,000.

January
9, 1985

Darrell Cabey
stops breathing and slips into a
coma.If Cabey dies,
Goetz’s attempted
murder charged would be bumped up to murder.

January
25, 1985

In
a hearing before a grand jury,
prosecutors seek indictments on four counts of attempted
murder, four
counts of assault, one count of reckless endangerment
and four counts
of
criminal possession of a weapon. The 23 jurors refused
to indict Goetz
on
anything more serious than three counts of illegal gun
possession.

February
1985

Two victims,
Canty and
Cabey, file civil suits against Goetz seeking $50
million in damages.

February
26, 1985

U.S.
Attorney Rudolph Giuliani
decides not to proceed with a federal civil rights
prosecution after
finding insufficient evidence that race was a motive in
the shooting.

March
14, 1985

Based
on new evidence
regarding the fifth shot that paralyzed Cabey, District
Attorney Waples
petitions
Judge Crane to allow him to resubmit the assault and
attempted murder
charged
to a grand jury.

March
27, 1985

A second
grand jury
indicts Goetz on ten new charges, including four charges
of attempted
murder and
four charges of assault.

June
27, 1985

Goetz
shooting victim James Ramseur is
arrested for raping and robbing a nineteen-year-old
woman at his
apartment
complex.

October
14, 1985

Goetz
moves to dismiss the
charges contained in the second indictment alleging that
the evidence
before
the grand jury was not sufficient to establish the
offenses charged and
that the
prosecutor’s instructions to the grand jury on
self-defense were
erroneous and
prejudicial to the defendant.

January
21, 1986

Judge Crane
dismisses
nine counts of the original thirteen based on the
prosecution’s
explanation of
the New York self-defense statute to the second grand
jury, leaving
only the
charges of gun possession and reckless endangerment.

March
3, 1986

James Ramseur is
convicted of rape, robbery, sodomy, sexual abuse,
assault, criminal use
of a
firearm, and possession of stolen property.He
will spend the next 25 years in prison on these charges.

July
8, 1986

The New York
Court of
Appeals holds that the prosecution’s self-defense
description was
correct and
all counts of the indictment are reinstated.

December
12, 1986

The criminal
trial of the People
of New York v. Bernhard Hugo Goetz opens in New York
City.

December
13, 1986

Three hundred
prospective
jurors are summoned to the Manhattan Supreme Court for
initial jury
selection
and voir dire.

April
27, 1987

After
a long and
tedious voir dire process, opening statements are made
in the Goetz
trial.

May
5, 1987

James Ramseur
enters the courtroom to testify for the prosecution.He refuses to testify and
Judge Crane holds
him in contempt.

May
19, 1987

James Ramseur
returns to the courtroom to purge his contempt
citations.After Slotnick’s
two-day cross examination,
Ramseur refuses to answer any more of Slotnick’s
questions and Judge
Crane reinstates the contempt charges and strikes
Ramseur's testimony
from the record.

June
2, 1987

The defense
rests
without calling Bernhard Goetz to the stand.

June
10-12, 1987

Closing arguments
are made in the Goetz trial.

June
16, 1986

the
jury finds Bernhard
Goetz guilty on the charge of criminal possession of a
weapon in the
third
degree. Goetz is acquitted of all counts relating to
attempted murder,
assault
and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth
degree. (Goetz is
later sentenced
to six months in jail, one year of psychiatric
treatment, five years of
probation, two hundred hours of community service and a
fine of $5,000.)

November
22, 1986

Goetz’s
sentence is upheld by
the Court of Appeals of New
York.

1996

The civil
suit against Goetz filed by Darrell Cabey is
tried. The jury finds Goetz liable of reckless and
deliberate
infliction of
emotional distress and awards Cabey $43 million in
damages ($18 million
for
pain and suffering and $25 million for punitive
damages). Goetz
subsequently
files for bankruptcy.

2001

Goetz
runs unsuccessfully
for Mayor of New York City.

2002

Goetz plays a
criminalist
who teaches students how to use a concealed weapon in
the movie “Every
Move You
Make.”

2004

Goetz
is interviewed by Nancy Grace on Larry King Live and
states that his
actions
served the greater good for New
York City.

2005

Goetz runs
unsuccessfully
for New York City Public Advocate.

2010

Goetz is
interviewed for an
episode of The Biography Channel’s “Aftermath with
William Shatner.”
Goetz continues to believe his actions on the New York
City subway were fully
justified.

2014

New York City prosecutors announce that
they will try Goetz for allegedly selling $30 worth of
marijuana to an undercover officer after Goetz rejects a
plea offer involving 10 days of community service.